Frozen out? The 'mixed' team event with one female player

Kelsey DiClaudio is a world champion; one of the best female Para-ice hockey players in the world.

But she is not competing at the Winter Paralympics in Milan-Cortina.

Why?

Because despite the sport being a 'mixed' event at the Games, women are routinely overlooked.

In the 32 years since its debut in Lillehammer, only four have been selected - even though there is an optional 18th place in the squad reserved for a woman.

This year, just one woman will compete out of 135 entrants.

That woman is not DiClaudio, but for the 28-year-old, that is not really the issue. For her, the bigger question is: why isn't there a separate women's event?

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has long spoken of a desire for gender parity.

The Summer Games are close - there were 44.7% female athletes in Paris two years ago - but just 26.1% of the competitors in Milan-Cortina are women.

The figures are going in the right direction, though, and for the fourth successive Paralympic Winter Games, more female athletes will make it - 160 compared to the previous high of 136 at Beijing 2022, according to the IPC.

Nevertheless, parity remains a long way off - and for athletes like DiClaudio, her sport's mixed event is doing little to help.

The Paralympic movement began in rehabilitation centres for injured World War Two veterans at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, so, it's not surprising the early days were dominated by men, with a bias towards events for spinal-cord injuries and limb loss.

Eight decades on, women are still underrepresented in every sport in the Winter Paralympics.

Wheelchair curling, which must have at least one woman in a five-person team, has one of the best levels of female participation. A new mixed doubles discipline has been added at these Games, which has increased the participation of women in the sport to 38% from 33% in Beijing.

So, how helpful are mixed gender events?

Dr Nikolaus Dean, with the University of British Colombia, applied that question to wheelchair rugby and curling, Para-ice hockey and Para-equestrian. In 2023, he reported that "in practice, these sports provide little to no opportunity for women to get involved in the wider Paralympic movement".

It is a story that rings true for DiClaudio.

"I think it's there to deflect outrage," she said of her sport being a mixed event. "I don't think most teams take that seriously. I think it is to keep people quiet."

Team USA's Para-ice hockey team is selected after a residency programme involving athletes from the men's national team. Women are allowed to compete in the men's game, although the US have never selected one for their national side.

Asked what is key in selecting a team, American two-time Paralympic champion Jack Wallace said: "Chemistry and character is a massive factor."

But if you are not there, it is hard to demonstrate what you would bring to a team.

Canadian Raphaelle Tousignant is one of the few women to have joined a national men's programme and, in 2023, became the first woman to be selected for a men's Para-Ice Hockey World Championships.

Asked about the benefits of being on the men's team, she said: "They don't have to worry about having the money or doing a fundraiser to get to a competition, that's one thing.

"The other is they are at the Paralympic Games and they have a World Championship... they get paid to play their sport each month. I have the chance to have that because I play with the men's side."

Tousignant, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in October, has not been selected for Milan-Cortina.

The only woman who will compete is Japan's Akari Fukunishi, whose team face Slovakia on Tuesday. Slovakia entered Michaela Hozakova but she travelled separately to Milan, says she is "just a substitute" and has been watching from the stands.

IPC president Andrew Parsons acknowledged gender parity is "not happening fast enough" but added: "The direction is really clear... once we are able to have a female tournament in Para-ice hockey, this will help a lot to fill the gap."

Women's Para-ice hockey did not meet the eligibility criteria for the Paralympics, which asks for a minimum of two World Championships, sustained participation from a minimum of eight nations, and representation from a minimum three regions.

The lack of parity is evident in the number of medal events. In Milan-Cortina of a total of 79 medal events, 35 exist for women, 39 for men and five are mixed.

In Para-snowboard, men have had three times as many events as women.

A lack of visibility is known to affect participation at all levels of sport but is especially important at the Paralympics, which can offer some of the only media coverage a world event has in four years.

The classification system - the way athletes are grouped by impairment - adds an additional layer of complexity when trying to work out which events are missing.

The IPC cut the medal event for the most impaired female snowboarders in Beijing 2022 because of low participation the previous year.

Cecile Hernandez from France and American Brenna Huckaby challenged the decision in court and won on appeal, though had to compete with the less-impaired classification. Nevertheless, both became Paralympic champions.

Their fight for their place at the Games went further than themselves.

Nina Sparks, who will become Great Britain's first female snowboarder to compete at the Winter Paralympics, told BBC Sport that Hernandez was one of her "biggest role models".

There have been moves to increase the number of women's medal events at the Paralympics.

The Los Angeles Summer Paralympics in 2028 are set to feature 243 medal events for female athletes, which is eight more than for Paris 2024, while the number of medal events for male athletes has been reduced by eight to 263. The number of mixed medal events has increased by three to 46.

It is hard to qualify for the Games for any athlete but women with disabilities must also navigate societal and structural inequalities in life as well as sport, which combine to exclude them.

Some smaller countries are not sending any female athletes but six countries will have a record number of female competitors: Australia (five), Belarus (three), Brazil (three), Croatia (two), South Korea (six), Latvia (four).

The number of female competitors will increase in Para-alpine skiing (57), Para-biathlon (45), Para-cross-country skiing (65), Para-snowboard (15) and wheelchair curling (25).

One women's Para-ice hockey event could bring more than 80 women to the Winter Paralympics.

"To finally get to the Paralympic Games as a separate female division means everything to me," DiClaudio said.

There were six teams at last year's women's World Championships, including a British team, and multinational "Team World", with sell-out crowds. IPC president Parsons does not dismiss the chances of an appearance of the event in the 2030 Paralympics but thinks 2034 is more likely.

"We are living in the 21st century so we need to offer as many possibilities for females as possible," he said.